The Nobel-prize winning dramatist Elfriede Jelinek wrote the play Stecken, Stab und Stangl [Stick, Staff and Pole] in response to a xenophobic crime which occurred on 4 February 1995 in the village of Oberwart, in the Austrian province of Burgenland. Four Roma - Erwin Horvath, Karl Horvath, Peter Sarközi, and Josef Simon, referred to by surnames in Jelinek's play - were killed when they attempted to take down a sign reading “Gypsies go back to India” which was rigged with explosives. The perpetrators were never discovered. Jelinek has labeled this incident as the “most catastrophic” since the establishment of the Second Republic of Austria in 1945.
Named “play of the year” in 1996 by the highly …
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Citation: Marston William, Jennifer. "Stecken, Stab, und Stangl". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 December 2004 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16641, accessed 21 November 2024.]
